News Posts

An unforgettable trip from Earth to the edge of known space and back, the American Museum of Natural History’s The Known Universe has hit 10 million views on YouTube. Viewers from Australia to India to Alaska have tuned in to watch the video, which uses the Digital Universe Atlas, a scientifically accurate four-dimensional map of the cosmos maintained by Museum astrophysicists, to show the vastness of the universe. The Known Universe was created by the Museum in late 2009 as part of an exhibit for the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.

Life as a 60-foot-long Mamenchisaurus was no small feat. Check out how an average human would size up next to one of these super-sized sauropods that once roamed the Earth and visit The World’s Largest Dinosaurssite for more details about the upcoming exhibition.

Many people are familiar with the summertime flashing patterns of fireflies and have seen images of bizarre bioluminescent deep-sea fishes. However, few realize how pervasive bioluminescence is throughout the tree of life. Bioluminescence is known to occur in bacteria, protists, fungi, crustaceans, insects, worms, ctenophores, jellyfishes, squids, starfishes, sea cucumbers, tunicates, and fishes—not to mention sharks—as well as numerous additional invertebrate lineages.

This Wednesday, March 28, NPR’s popular weekly talk show Science Friday travels to the Museum for a special public recording in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. Host Ira Flatow will interview Museum Curator Emeritus Ian Tattersallabout how Homo sapiens became the dominant human species and speak to a panel of urban biodiversity experts, including Eleanor Sterling, the director of the Museum’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. Flatow recently shared what he’s looking forward to about the evening.

In recent years, a radically new vision of the universe has emerged: only 4 percent of it consists of every planet, star, and galaxy. The rest—96 percent—is completely unknown. How did astronomers reach this cosmos-shattering conclusion, and what are they doing to find dark matter and an even more bizarre substance called dark energy?